Guinean police beat journalist covering protest

Police
officers assaulted Alpha Oumar Diallo, a journalist for online newspaper Aminata, as he covered anti-government protests
on May 10, 2012, in Conakry, the capital, according to news reports and local journalists.

Diallo
said he was accosted by six police officers as he covered the violent dispersal
by security forces of demonstrators protesting the government's preparations for
upcoming parliamentary elections. The officers accused him of being a protester
and began beating him with police batons even though he showed them his press
identity card, Diallo said.

The
officers only stopped beating Diallo when Aboubakar Gassama Camara, a director
in the media relations office in the Guinean police, identified him as a
journalist. Camara also helped the journalist to retrieve his belongings, which
the police had confiscated, Diallo told CPJ.

Camara
confirmed Diallo's story, but told CPJ that journalists who were assaulted
by security forces must have been mistaken as protesters because they did not
adequately identify themselves. Several other journalists were assaulted that
same day, CPJ learned.